Solar Europe's biggest electricity source ....

 .... in summer.

From Electrek

Solar power reached a new milestone across Europe last month [June 2026], generating a record 52 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity and supplying 25% of all electricity used in the European Union in June 2026, according to new analysis from energy think tank Ember.

That’s the first time solar has provided a quarter of the EU’s monthly electricity. It also made solar the bloc’s largest source of electricity for the month, ahead of nuclear (21%), gas (15%), wind (14%), hydro (12%), and coal (8%).

It’s only the third time solar has topped all other power sources in the EU, following June 2025 and May 2026. But this time, it set a new record, beating May’s previous high of 47 TWh and a 23% share of electricity generation.

“Solar’s rise has been truly stratospheric, beating prediction after prediction,” said Ember senior analyst Chris Rosslowe. “In just a few years solar has gone from a small player to an essential part of Europe’s power system, as governments and citizens look for low-cost, quick-to-install domestic power sources.”

The record came as Europe experienced another month of intense summer heat. Higher temperatures boosted electricity demand for air conditioning and cooling, while solar panels generated large amounts of power during long, sunny days.

That strong solar output also helped offset weaker performance from other electricity sources during hot, still weather.

The milestone caps several years of rapid solar growth. Just five years ago, in June 2021, solar generated only 21 TWh, supplying around 10% of the EU’s electricity.

According to Ember, solar generation has grown by more than 20% every year between 2021 and 2025, making it Europe’s fastest-growing power source. A big reason is the pace of new installations: The EU added 65.1 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity in 2025 alone.

That growth is showing up across the continent. So far in 2026, 18 EU countries have set new monthly records for the share of electricity generated by solar.

Spain crossed an important threshold in June, with solar supplying 34% of its electricity for the first time. Ember says the country’s support for renewable energy helped shield consumers during the recent energy price spikes that followed the US-Israel war with Iran, saving households about €10 per month on electricity bills.

Germany also set a new record, with solar providing 36% of its electricity in June after topping 33% of generation in May.

Meanwhile, Poland – still one of the EU’s biggest coal users – generated 24% of its electricity from solar in June. The country has added more than 20 GW of solar capacity since 2020, making it one of Europe’s fastest-growing solar markets.

Clearly, solar is only a solution to the need for renewable electricity for part of the year.  As can be seen in the chart above, in November, December, January and February, solar electricity generation is low.

Fortunately, low solar in winter is offset by high wind-generated electricity.  The chart below is from Jan Rosenow's Bright Spots on Substack.

The blue is the percentage share of wind in total generation, the yellow is the share of solar.  They mostly offset each other, and definitely have a negative seasonal correlation.  But sometimes they don't offset each other.  The brown bars show days when both wind and solar are low at the same time.  This is called dunkelflaute, when it's cold, dark and still.  We have as yet no satisfactory way to deal with dunkelflaute except by burning gas in peaking gas plants.  True, this will only be for a few days each year, but if we are to reach true-zero (as opposed to net-zero) we would need to find some way around this problem.

My second observation is the large day-to day fluctuations in output.  Even though they often offset each other, over the winter months, wind shows large day-to-day movements without being offset by solar.  However, this is just Germany's wind output.  The further apart wind farms are, the less their output is correlated, so the average of wind output across Europe would be much less variable than just in Germany. All the same, as the share of renewables in the grid rises, we could need not just 4 hours of storage (the norm for solar, so far) but conceivably much more, to average output over two days, even before we tackle dunkelflaute. 

I remain convinced that the solution is synthetic natural gas (SNG — nice oxymoron there!).  This takes hydrogen produced via electrolysis using surplus green electricity, and then, using the Sabatier process, combines this with the CO2 to produce methane (H2+CO2 ---> CH4).  The most expensive part of this process would be direct air capture, extracting the very low percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere.  However, using the exhaust flues of gas power stations is much easier and much cheaper.  There would be a closed loop: burn gas ---> keep CO2 ---> use CO2 to make new methane ---> burn gas to generate electricity.   Europe has an extensive gas grid, significant (weeks) gas storage, and many legacy gas power stations.  Plus, methane is much easier to store and transport than hydrogen.  

Europe's EV sales boom

Europeans are responding to soaring petrol/diesel prices by buying EVs and hybrids.   That choking noise you hear is the death rattle of ICEVs.  

From Inside EVs

Europeans’ appetite for electric cars is not slowing down. Last month, EV sales in the region went up by 51% compared to the same month last year, leading to a crisp 25% market share for this type of powertrain, according to Dataforce, which crunched the numbers from 98% of all new car registrations in the European Union, United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland.

In the first seven months of 2026, EV sales grew 37% compared to the same period last year, helping the entire industry keep its numbers in the green. By comparison, the entire European car market went up by 4.1% last month and 5.7% from January through July.

The growth of EV sales outpaced plug-in hybrids and traditional hybrids, too, with PHEV sales rising by 15% in July, while full-hybrid sales were up 9%. Rising fuel prices and an ever-expanding lineup of electric cars are more than likely the main drivers behind the sustained growth of EV registrations in Europe.

France and Germany, two of the biggest car markets in Europe, are leading the EV boom, with more and more battery-powered vehicles hitting the roads every month. In July, France hit a 35% EV share, with over 44,000 registrations. Meanwhile, full-electric cars reached a 29.3% share last month, with nearly 79,000 registrations.

In total, 277,006 EVs were registered in Europe last month, and none of Tesla’s models are at the top of the list. The Škoda Elroq was the best-selling EV in the region, followed by the Volkswagen ID.4 and the Renault 5 E-Tech. However, the Tesla Model Y is still the best-selling EV in Europe after the first seven months of the year, with 115,759 registrations, an increase of 55%. Škoda’s Elroq is second, with 67,679 units, followed by the Tesla Model 3 with 57,086 cars sold.

The Škoda Elroq

How Europe generates its electricity

 From Visual Capitalist

European heatwave

 From The BBC

This El Niño will take temperatures to new highs. The acceleration in recent years is obvious, and I've talked about it before.  The trend will continue.

Will this latest heatwave encourage politicians to do more?  Don't count on it.

No, Europe isn't falling behind the USA

Hint:  No. 

From TLDR

The perils of comparing economies. And excellent insight into the problems.

 

EU vs US comparison

 From a Bluesky post by Justin Parolev

Credits to @geodatarankings Source data OECD, EuroStat and CRC

We are winning, despite Trump & big oil

 From Claes de Vreese

And now something positive:

Solar and wind energy production in the EU surpasses fossil energy for the first time.

#TippingPoint

Source: https://dr.dk

 

Despite big oil, despite Trump, despite the Right's betrayal of ordinary people: we are doing it. Too slowly, certainly, but the trend is in the right direction, on renewables, on EVs, and on heat pumps.

Victory is possible.

Europe's PMI turns down

The dotted lines show the PMI indices for manufacturing/services for the Euro Area, each extreme-adjusted (by me) to remove "spikes".  The solid red line shows the average of the other two.  

Up to two months ago, the red line had been rising, pointing to an economic recovery.   Normally, manufacturing and construction lead services, and the manufacturing PMI has been falling, so the fall in the services PMI probably isn't a fluke, but a response to the downturn in manufacturing,

China's PMIs have picked up fractionally, but Europe's, the USA's, Brazil's and Canada's manufacturing PMIs are falling, with most other countries' going sideways.

Again, not recession, at least not yet, but clearly stagnation. 

 

EU to cut emissions by 85%

 From Reuters

The European Union agreed on Wednesday to set a legally binding climate target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% from 1990 levels by 2040, and buy foreign carbon credits to cover 5% of the emissions cuts, goals that fell short of its original plan.

Negotiators from EU countries and the European Parliament reached the deal in the early hours of Wednesday, they confirmed in separate statements.

In practice, the target will require an 85% emissions reduction from European industries, and payment to developing countries via carbon credits to cut emissions on Europe's behalf to make up the rest.

The goal goes beyond most other major economies' emissions-cutting pledges, including China's. Still, it fell short of that recommended by the EU's climate science advisers and was weaker than Brussels' original plan for the goal, reflecting disagreement between EU governments over the speed and cost of their green agenda.

"The target delivers on the need for climate action while safeguarding our competitiveness and security," said Danish climate minister Lars Aagaard, who negotiated the deal on behalf of EU governments.

The EU also agreed to consider the option in future to use international carbon credits to meet a further 5% of its 2040 emissions reductions - potentially further softening the domestic efforts required.

The target, which is designed to keep Europe on track for its pledge to have net-zero emissions by 2050, represented a political compromise after months of negotiations.

Countries including Poland, Slovakia and Hungary had opposed deeper CO2 cuts as too strenuous for industries struggling with high energy costs, cheaper Chinese imports and U.S. tariffs.

Other EU members, including the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, cited worsening extreme weather events and the need to catch up with China in manufacturing green technology as reasons to set a high target.

To win over opponents, the EU also agreed to delay the launch of a politically sensitive carbon price for fuel by one year, to 2028.

The Parliament and EU countries must each approve the target for it to become law - usually a formality that waves through pre-agreed deals.

Europe's CO2 emissions peaked in 1990, and have fallen 40% since then.  Their emissions have fallen much more in percentage terms than other large countries, and other big polluters (China and India) are still going up.   An 85% cut in emissions from 1990 would reduce Europe's emissions to those seen in the year 1900.  Imagine if other countries were to do the same!

If every country committed to cutting emissions by just 3% a year, global emissions would halve by 2050 (still not zero, for sure, but better than the status quo) and fall by 90% by the year 2100.   And such a target is eminently achievable, if we switch electricity generation to renewables, switch our vehicle fleet to EVs, and replace gas and oil heating with heat pumps.

Source: Our World in Data

 

The dictator threatening Europe

 By Christian Adams

Europe's weak recovery

 S&P Global's PMI for Euro-zone manufacturing looks as if it is still in an uptrend, and it is toying with the 50% recession line.  But it's very far from a boom.  Yes, the PMI is up from its low of 43 in 2023.  43, by the way, is consistent with a deep recession.  But it's been flat for the last couple of months.  The European Central Bank (ECB) has made it clear it's not going to act to fend off a slowdown or recession caused by Trump's trade war--a mistake in my opinion. 

For now, I'd say the European economy is troughing, i.e., diffusion indices like the PMI are at 50%, meaning there are more respondents with improving sales/production/employment than there are where those are falling. The recovery has prolly begun, but don't go looking for a robust upswing.  The ECB may well have to go back to cutting rates again.  Trump's swingeing tariffs on China are leading to China's exporters looking for new markets, with the effect that China's deflation is being exported to Europe.  Inflation is not going to be Europe's problem over the next 12 months; growth is.

It was wrong to leave the EU

 A graph from the FT via James O'Brien

BYD targets Europe

 

BYD Seal

From Business Insider

BYD has set its sights on Tesla's European backyard.

The Chinese EV maker announced on Monday that it would nearly triple the number of sales and service locations in Germany, the home of Tesla's European gigafactory, by the end of 2026.

The German expansion comes as part of a larger European push that will see the number of BYD stores on the continent double to more than 2,000 next year, executives said in a press conference at the IAA Mobility summit in Munich.

BYD, China's biggest automaker, has bet heavily on overseas markets as it confronts fierce competition back home.

According to executive vice president Stella Li, the company now sells 13 models in Europe, and sales have surged so far this year.

BYD outsold rival Tesla in Europe for the second time this year in July, as Elon Musk's carmaker grapples with slowing sales in its third-largest market.

Buoyed by recent success, BYD is now looking to put down roots. The company showed off its new SEAL 6 DM-i Touring, a hybrid sedan with a combined range of up to 1505km, in Munich, and is building a factory in Hungary with a production capacity of 200,000 cars a year.

Li told reporters that the Hungarian plant, which will allow BYD to avoid the 17% tariff imposed on Chinese cars by the European Union last year, would begin production by the end of 2025. She added that the $24,500 Dolphin Surf hatchback will be the first car to be made in the factory.

BYD is also planning to roll out its ultra-fast "megawatt" EV chargers in Europe, which the company says can add 400km of range in just five minutes.

Li said BYD aimed to install 200 to 300 of the ultrafast chargers, which are twice as powerful as Tesla's top EV chargers, in Europe by the second quarter of 2026.

Europe's economy on the mend

The chart shows the extreme-adjusted PMIs for manufacturing and for services for the Euro Zone (those countries which have the Euro as their currency), and for the average of manufacturing and services, which should be a good proxy for GDP growth.  

The PMIs have now crossed the 50% "recession line", meaning that output is at last starting to expand, in response to interest rate cuts by the ECB.  Will this recovery be derailed?  Obviously, that's a possibility, but Trump's tariff pagaille is likely to be worse for the US than for Europe.  Tariffs will cause a surge in inflation in the US, reducing real incomes and consumption, while also simultaneously delaying further Fed rate cuts.  

Meanwhile, in Europe, the EU has agreed to increase defence spending, and to allow increased debt to pay for it, and you may be sure that the increase in defence spending will go towards European (& perhaps Canadian) rather than American contractors.  Also, the ECB has leeway to cut interest rates again, because inflation is low, whereas the Fed does not.  

The sum of US stagnation/recession, a European recovery, and an Asian upturn (PMIs have started rising there again, after slumping when the tariff war started), means that world growth will improve.  But it won't be a boom, that's for sure.

75% of the EU's electricity is carbon-free

From Jan Rosenow

 

Unthinkable just 10 years ago:

Almost 3/4 of the EU’s electricity in 2024 was from renewable energy sources and nuclear. Gas and coal electricity generation is at record low levels.

My comments:

• India (a big polluter) still has a long way to go.
• China's wind and solar are growing fast enough for emissions from electricity generation to start falling, maybe this year, maybe next.  Add in the skyrocketing growth in EVs and China's emissions have probably peaked.
• Europe's total emissions are back where they were in 1964, even through GDP and living standards are way higher.  A great achievement, which shows you what can be done.
• The US's decline in emissions has prolly been overstated because "fugitive emissions" (=gas leaks) are much higher than estimated.  Look how much US electricity comes from burning gas.
• But coal remains the big no-no.  And we -- the world -- still use far too much of it.

Big 5 still strengthening (just)

The "flash" (provisional) PMIs for the big 5 economies (US, UK, Euro Area, India and Japan; there is no "flash" PMI for China) rose a little in March.   Together, they make up just over half of world GDP. Each component has been extreme-adjusted to remove outliers.  Europe is recovering (see lower chart), Japan is weakening, and the US is mixed (we don't know yet just how much Trump's trade wars will reduce US economic activity).  So, on the evidence so far, the world economy is continuing to improve, slowly.

Canada and Mexico are both falling into recession.  How much their slowdown will impact the USA remains to be seen.   And Europe's embrace of deficit spending and defence spending using European (not US!) suppliers, Europe's growth will surprise on the up-side.

Bellwether Euro economy picks up

 Austria, an entrepôt economy at the centre of Europe, is a good bellwether for the whole European economy.  It's one of the first final PMIs to be released (the other early releases are "flash" or provisional, based on available responses, usually 85-90% of the normal sample).

After a mid-year slowdown last year, it's started to rise.  It's still not above the 50% recession line, but I'm becoming more and more confident that the European economy is above to start growing again.  They will certainly need it: military spending will have to increase by 1 to 2 % of GDP.  A bit of growth elsewhere will make the pain of that less onerous.

Data through Feb 2025

Retail sales in Europe point to recovery

They're not booming, but the volume of retail sales in Europe is actually growing.

 

Unlocking cheaper energy

The EU’s Green Deal aims to ensure that the European Union achieves climate neutrality by 2050, through a comprehensive transition to renewable energies. Image by Rawpixel (CC0)

From East Anglia Bylines

 

National targets for solar and wind power will see reliance on natural gas massively decline, reducing electricity price volatility across Europe, with major beneficiaries including the UK and Ireland, the Nordics, and the Netherlands.

Hitting the current national 2030 quotas for solar and wind energy could reduce the volatility of electricity markets by an average of 20% across 29 European countries, according to a new study from the University of Cambridge.

The intensity of spikes in power prices are predicted to fall in every country by the end of the decade if commitments to green energy are met, as natural gas dependency is cut.

The UK and Ireland would be the biggest beneficiaries, with 44% and 43% reductions in the severity of electricity price spikes by 2030, compared with last year. Germany could experience a 31% decline in electricity price volatility, with the Netherlands and Belgium seeing price spikes ease by 38% and 33% respectively.

The simulations conducted for the new study show that scaling up renewable energy minimises the market impact of fluctuations in natural gas price – increasing stability even when considering the reliance of renewable technologies on weather.

Some EU leaders and energy ministers have called for renewables targets on grounds of energy security as well as decarbonisation, particularly since Putin’s war on Ukraine stemmed the flow of Russian gas.

The study, published in the journal Nature Energy, calculates in detail how such aims would affect the volatility of wholesale electricity prices in energy markets across Europe.

“The volatility of energy prices is a major cause of damage to national economies,” said Laura Diaz Anadon, the University of Cambridge’s Professor of Climate Change Policy.

“Consumers are still reeling from sharp increases in electricity prices brought about by natural gas shortages following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” said Anadon. “We show that hitting renewables targets reduce the likelihood of such price spikes in the future.”

Daniel Navia, a researcher with the University’s Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (CEENRG), said: “Meeting renewable energy targets is not only good for carbon neutrality, but we can see it is a boost to economic resilience”

“We had probably underestimated how costly energy price shocks are to our societies, and the last crisis has been a stark reminder.”

The Cambridge researchers used the University’s high performance computing facilities to model a wide range of factors – from fluctuations in weather patterns and energy demands to fuel capacity – to map the current and future grids of all 27 EU nations plus the UK and Switzerland.

They assessed electricity markets in 2030 based on the commitments to renewables as stated in each nation’s national energy and climate plan.

“The UK in particular is projected to see major benefits to its energy market stability from renewables,” said Anadon.

“The UK has struggled with its exposure to gas prices due to a lack of energy storage and limited connections to the European grid. This has led to more hours where electricity prices are set by natural gas.”

The research also suggests that wholesale prices of electricity could fall by over a quarter on average across all countries in the study by decade’s end if they stick to current national renewables targets.

Again, populations in the UK and Ireland stand to gain significantly, with electricity prices predicted to fall by around 45% by 2030, compared with the current situation.

Several of the Nordic nations could see over 60% reductions in electricity costs by 2030, while in Germany the price is predicted to fall by 34%, with Belgium seeing a similar drop of 31%. The study suggests the Netherlands could see the price of electricity fall by 41%.

Anti-renewables critics (mostly on the Right) maintain that renewables bring higher prices.  But this is because gas is used to balance the grid, and gas prices outside the USA have gone up 5-fold since early 2020.  New wind and solar and batteries have continued to fall in price over the last 5 years, solar and batteries especially.  Electricity from peaking plants is always expensive because they only run for a short time, yet their expenses must still be covered, meaning that the cost per MWh is several times the cost of other sources of power.

This ratio of gas peaking plants to wind and solar is obviously made even worse if the gas price has quintupled.  As battery costs decline, more and more of the need for peaking plants will be assumed by "big batteries" (and also by the batteries in our EVs.)  Costs will inevitably fall, not rise.

Austria PMI rebounds; Europe picks up

 Austria is in a sense an entrepôt economy.  It's at the centre of trade in Eastern Europe, bordering Germany, Italy, Czechia, Switzerland and Slovakia, and close to Poland, and its economy closely parallels the pan-Europe economy.  The rebound in the PMI over the last few months is much more obvious in Austria than in Europe, which suggests to me that Europe is at last moving towards economic recovery.

What will happen with Trump throwing a spanner into the works with his sharp tariff increases is hard to tell.  But a jump in tariffs on imports from Europe into the USA will slow growth, and the response of governments and the ECB will be to roll out stimulatory measures to offset that.